Defense attorneys for the Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with plotting the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks told the court this week that the Wi-Fi connection at Starbucks was more secure than the Pentagon’s own system.

Lawyers for the accused terrorists said in pretrial hearings
previously that they often relied on the wireless Internet
provided at coffee shops to conduct work over the Web, but on
Thursday the attorneys went as far as to say that the Starbucks’
Wi-Fi was significantly the most secure connection available.

Air Force Colonel Karen Mayberry, the chief defense counsel for
the war crimes tribunal, told the judge that the Starbucks Wi-Fi
was “the best bad option that we had,” Jane Sutton
reported for Reuters.

Lawyers for the accused 9/11 masterminds asked the court before
for more time to prepare their case, citing an inability to work
efficiently on the Defense Department’s computer system.

"We're basically put back in the 19th century," Army Major
Jason Wright, the attorney for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, said last
month. "It takes about five to 10 times what it would normally
take to do defense functions.”

Army Colonel James Pohl said at the time, "I understand the
serious nature of being able to communicate as a defense
counsel," and announced he would decide this week if hearings
set for later this year should be postponed to provide attorneys
more time.

On Thursday, the lawyers said things haven’t improved with
regards to their computer issues.

Mayberry acknowledged that the Starbucks Wi-Fi might be
unsecure but, according to Reuters, said she was certain the DoD
network had been compromised. She told Pohl that computer files
used by the defense have repeatedly gone lost, some were
mysteriously altered and referenced instances in which government
officials admitted to monitoring the Internet use of defense
attorneys.

"It's not speculative or hypothetical. It happened," she
said.

A day earlier, another attorney for Mohammed said he was
questioned by the government about visiting terrorism-related
websites. Mayberry said that the pages lawyer David Nevin and
other members of the defense team visited were relevant to their
work. On their part, the Defense Department said it has systems
in place to flag suspicious activity on the Pentagon’s systems.

Given the issues that have plagued the attorney’s ability to
access the Internet so far, though, Mayberry said the problems
created “an extremely difficult work environment,” and
that “it has become a cumbersome process to complete even the
most simple of tasks.”

Nevin, Washington Post’s Billy Keber reported from Gitmo, said US
intelligence services “have an extreme interest in
information in
relation to the men who are the accused in this case.” It was
previously reported that fake smoke detectors
at Guantanamo had been equipped with eavesdropping devices and
that defense emails were handed over to the prosecution.

According to Reuters, a logistic overseer said it could take over
three months to fix the Pentagon’s system and was a matter of
money. Internet technology supervisor Paul Scott Parr testified
that the problems may have occurred due to a switch in the email
system used by attorneys, or perhaps an attempt to replicate
their work on two computers networks — one based near Washington
and another near the Cuban prison. Pohl said funding for the
issues could be discussed in court in around two weeks.